


The Company I Keep

by kerlin



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee's no one's beck and call boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Company I Keep

It isn't so much the taunt that has him spinning on his heels as the easy familiarity with which it is thrown.

Lee has never seen the man before, but even after three months he doesn't know every single rating on Galactica. This one is one of Tyrol's deck crew, too old for his rank of Specialist and with the sneer to prove that it's a bad attitude that's kept him there.

"What did you say?" Lee asks, drawing on learned lessons in command presence to square his shoulders, tilt his jaw, and try to make the half-head's difference in height a non-factor.

"Nothing, cap'n," the Specialist replies, and again, it's in the delivery. The man is rocked back just slightly on his heels with his thumbs tucked in, and he has yet to meet Lee's eyes.

"_Attention_, Specialist. I asked you a question." He has his mother's temper, he's known this for years, but that never makes it any easier to choke back the fury.

"Yessir, you did." The Specialist is now practically smirking.

"Answer it," Lee orders, curtly, struggling to keep the inner frustration from coming out in his words.

"Said you were the finest CAG I've ever served under," the man answers after a few moments of calculating hesitation.

"No, that's not what you said," Lee corrects. "Unless you're really desperate to spend an extra week in the brig, I suggest you give me an honest answer."

The Specialist shrugs and remains unrepentant, and it is at exactly this moment that Tigh walks by.

"Is there a problem here?"

Lee feels like he's back in school, Tigh his father's first line of defense against childish stupidities. "Colonel, this man just bought himself two weeks in the brig for disrespect of an officer and disobeying a direct order."

Tigh snaps his fingers at the nearest woman in a Security uniform, and she snapped to attention and herself there.

"Corporal, would you escort Specialist Corvay to the brig?" Lee asked, trying to regain the upper hand.

"Yes, sir," the Corporal answered smartly, and within a few seconds Corvay – a name Lee will not forget now – is on his way down the hall, not an ounce of regret in his steps.

"What the hell was – "

"Nothing," Lee replies abruptly. "I appreciate your help, Colonel." He leaves before Tigh can question him further, knows he should spend time in an adjoining cell to Corvay for his rudeness, but he doesn't really are.

Piloting his Viper to Colonial One dulls the immediacy of his anger, but not entirely, and predictably Laura notices right away.

"What is it, Lee?" is the first thing she asks him, and when he unconsciously darts his eyes around the room she dismisses her staff with a wave of her hand.

He doesn't answer her at first, strides over to the window to look at the stark, clean lines of Galactica as she hovers just starboard of Colonial One. "My father said I would have to choose sides."

"Your father has a very militarized view of the world," Laura retorts. They've had this discussion before. "What brought this on?"

"I'm not your beck and call boy," he blurts out, and every one of the years between them stretches into an eternity. He feels more foolish than he's possibly ever felt before, blundering about, inept and childish and a thousand other adjectives that mean he's standing here whining about what some frak-up said about him in a hallway.

"Ah," she says and she smiles and it's possible that he's blushing and now even sulkier than before.

Instead of saying anything further, she walks over to stand beside him and watches Galactica as well. A moment or two of silence, and then she reaches up and with two fingers tilts his head to face her and kisses him.

He feels the muscles across his shoulders loosening as the tension leaves him, and deepens the kiss as she sighs into it.

"Okay?" she asks when they pull apart and he leans his forehead against hers.

"Okay."


End file.
